Life Blood
by robbiepoo2341
Summary: (General, not shipping) The Doctor didn't mean to get involved with the Winchesters. They're into all the wrong things: the killing kind of things. But now he's attached, but that means he's got to deal with the consequences. Because getting involved with the Winchesters means he may lose one of them.
1. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter One

A/N: AHH IT IS HERE I AM SO EXCITED I FINISHED THIS CHAPTER DAYS AGO AND I HAVE BEEN WAITING ON PINS AND NEEDLES TO POST IT BUT I HAD TO WAIT CUZ I DON'T HAVE AS MUCH TIME TO WRITE THIS WEEK SO I NEED THE EXTRA TIME SO I CAN POST EVERY TUESDAY BUT NOW TUESDAY IS HERE AND I WILL FIGHT YOU ON THIS I AM MORE EXCITED THAN YOU ARE.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rights.

...

A/N: Okay, it has come to my attention that not everyone knows this is a sequel, so here, let me catch you up:

**The Road So Far**

Episode One: Stranger

The Doctor and Martha meet a very sick eight-year-old Dean Winchester when he's trying to buy himself some medicine. But when a ghost shows up at the grocery store, Dean takes the lead and the Doctor has to face the facts that the supernatural might very well be real.

Episode Two: Introduction

When kids are going missing, the Doctor and Rose step up to investigate. When their investigation collides with Dean's, the Doctor meets the Winchesters for the first time, and the only thing that makes him trust Dean is Rose's assertion that she's already met him.

Episode Three: Ape

As a treat after their hunt, the Doctor takes the Winchesters on a field trip. Unfortunately, that field trip leads them right into some Silurians, and Dean manages to get himself captured almost as soon as they land.

Episode Four: Angels

When the Doctor finds Dean hunting weeping angels, he's determined to keep his friend safe. But when Donna is sent back in time and the sun goes down, the two of them have to figure out a plan before they lose the light.

Episode Five: Mary

Donna is stuck in the 1970s, and she doesn't like it. When the Doctor and Dean go after her, though, they find more than they bargained for in Lawrence, Kansas, back before Mary died. The Doctor (and others) must keep Dean from trying to change his past.

Episode Six: Trust

Jack, Rose, and the Doctor just wanted a nice day out, but when they investigate some cried for help, Jack and Rose find themselves tied up and waiting to be sacrificed. When Dean and Sam track them down, they must first convince Rose and Jack that they're here to help.

Episode Seven: Alone

Sam's gone, Dad's a mess, so when Dean gets a call from his old friend Jack, of course he's willing to help. He just wasn't expecting to be vortex-ed ten years into the future into the headquarters of Torchwood!

Episode Eight: Water

Martha and the Doctor just want a nice relaxing day at the beach. The Winchester brothers have the same idea. But when first Martha and then Dean go missing, it's up to the Doctor and Sam to rescue them before it's too late.

Episode Nine: Pilot

The Doctor is in a bad place, and River has asked the TARDIS to take them somewhere to cheer him up. So the TARDIS takes them to Dean in New Orleans working a case on his own: a voodoo case that has already claimed another hunter's life.

...

**Now**

"Where to this time?" he asked, grinning. He closed the doors behind him with a swish and a kick of his foot.

Rose was still breathing heavily, but still grinning. "What?" she said through heavy breaths, "a couple Sontarans not enough for you?"

He laughed breezily. "I thought you handled them nicely. Never seen anyone give a Sontaran general a talking to like that!" He grinned at the memory, still laughing. He wasn't sure who was more surprised: Rose or the general.

She leaned back against the TARDIS console, still trying to get her breath. "Why don't we go somewhere quiet and safe?"

He looked at her. She looked back. They both burst out laughing.

"No, really. Where would you like to go?" he asked.

She bit her lip, pretending to think it over. He could see the shine in her eyes, the twinkle. What he'd give to keep her laughing. Then, finally, she said, "Let's go home, then. See some old faces?"

He blinked and tried not to ask her why she'd want to go home when there was _so much else _she could see, but he remembered Susan and decided not to press her. Family. It was important.

"Boring, plain old Earth it is," he said with a grin and a flourish. He pulled at the TARDIS controls, then grabbed tight as his old girl shook around.

"Bit shakier than usual," she noted.

He made a face at her.

He took her by the hand and led her out the door, and then she laughed out loud.

He stuck his head out the door, took in his surroundings, bit his lip, and muttered a quick, "Oops."

"This isn't home," she said.

He shrugged. "It's Earth. That's close, right?"

She just laughed at him.

He closed the door behind him, took his arm through hers, and then gestured expansively. "Well," he said with a grin, "shall we see the sights, then?"

She just laughed and then reached for his hand to lace her fingers through his.

He couldn't help beaming as they strolled through the streets. And why shouldn't he? He had his Rose, he had his TARDIS, and things were finally looking up for him. He hadn't had a reason to smile for a very long time, not before he met her, and he was going to enjoy every second of it, for everything he was worth.

It didn't take them long to get through the town. It was practically just a fishing village. From the air, he could tell they were probably in the United States. Around Washington. Close to Canada.

"It's a bit brisk," Rose said.

"We could always nip inside for a cider," he suggested.

She grinned at him.

He pushed his way through the door, and a small bell chimed. "Hello!" he said loudly to the emptiness.

He heard the pattering of small footsteps, and then a little brown hair sticking up. He heard a grunt as the boy climbed up to see better, and then the boy eyed them both. "Sightseeing?" he asked at last.

Rose was trying to hide her smile from the little boy; he could tell. He looked so self-important; it was almost adorable. But the Doctor could see he'd been left behind to mind things, so he just smiled. "We got here just a bit ago. Just wandering around town a bit. We like to do that. Wandering, I mean." He flashed his brightest smile. "Bit nippy, though. You got anything warm? Apple cider?"

"Or hot chocolate?" Rose asked suddenly.

The little boy nodded. "I know where to get that for you."

He started to climb down from his stool when Rose asked, "Sorry, but where are your parents?"

At that question, a dark cloud seemed to pass over the boy's face. "Don't know. They haven't been back all day." His lower lip trembled, but he didn't say anything.

Rose looked immediately concerned, but the Doctor knew just what to do. He leaned into the counter and grinned carelessly. "Well, they must think you're a very big boy to run this place all by yourself. You must be very important!"

The little boy grinned gratefully. "Thanks." He sniffled but still persisted in pretending he wasn't really upset. Then, almost as an afterthought: "I've got it better than lots of my friends. Some of them haven't seen their parents in a couple days, or else they do come back but they come back . . . different."

"Different how?" the Doctor asked, intrigued.

The little boy shook his head. "It's hard to describe," he said. "They just stop being . . . parents."

"Like leaving a little boy in charge of a shop?" Rose whispered.

The Doctor nodded furtively, then turned to the boy. "What's your name?"

"Will."

"Well, Will," he said, "me and my friend Rose are pretty good at finding lost people. We'd like to help out, if that's okay with you."

Will's entire face lit up. "Can you find the grown-ups, then?" he asked.

"We'll try not to bring back any boring ones," the Doctor joked. "But first, would you like some help getting the hot chocolate ready? We'd like to warm up before we go outside."

Will nodded, smiling, glad to have something to do to distract himself. The Doctor watched him run off with a frown, wondering how long that little boy had been alone waiting for someone to come back home.

The door burst open to more bells chiming, but this time, a high voice shouted, "Will! Have your parents come back yet? It's happening again!"

The Doctor and Rose both turned to see a little girl, maybe a year younger than Will, with blonde braids and mud on her bright yellow rainboots. She looked both of them up and down and asked, "What are you two doing here?"

Will came running out from the back of the store with two empty mugs that he hurriedly set on the table. He unlatched the door between the space behind the counter and the side of the restaurant and rushed to his friend. "Abbie! What are you doing here?"

Abbie put her hands on her hips and pointed at the Doctor and Rose. "How come you have grown-ups at your house?"

"They're not grown-ups from around here. They just got here, so they're not weirdified yet," Will explained.

Abbie looked them over again, and the Doctor tried not to laugh at the stark seriousness of her expression. "I don't like them."

Well, they couldn't have that. The Doctor knelt down close to Abbie and extended his hand. "Hello," he said brightly. "I'm the Doctor. This is my friend Rose," he added, sweeping his arm out towards his friend. "We're here to help."

Abbie still didn't look convinced, but she scrunched up her face like she was thinking about something else. "Are you working with the tall grown-ups in the black car?"

"What?"

Abbie frowned and turned to Will. She thought she was whispering, but girls her age had not yet mastered the art of speaking quietly enough to avoid being heard. "Why are all these grown ups getting here all of a sudden?"

Will put a finger to his lips. "They said they could help!"

"Do you think they're coming for the big meeting too?"

"What big meeting?" the Doctor asked.

Abbie put her hands on her hips again, but this time Will stepped in. "All the grown-ups get together sometimes in the old saloon," he said. "It used to be a big place when there were still cowboys, but now it's all broken down, so I don't know why they go there." He made a face. "And anyway, none of us kids are old enough to go there."

Rose shook her head and knelt down beside the Doctor. "We'll try to figure out what's going on, okay?"

But the Doctor was interested in something else. "Abbie," he said, "where did you say the grown-ups were with the black car?" He was thinking maybe the government, but if he was lucky, maybe the American branch of UNIT.

Abbie pointed outside and giggled. "One of 'em is really nice, Will. He's definitely not weirdified yet." And then her expression darkened. "I hope they don't get him."

Rose followed the Doctor out the door, still wearing her concerned expression. She grabbed him by the arm. "Do you think those kids are safe?" she asked.

"They seem to be holding up well, all things considered," the Doctor said, then stopped and slapped a hand to his forehead. "Right! Wait right there." He rushed back inside.

"I thought you were going to find the other grown-ups," Will said.

The Doctor grinned. "We're going there in just a tic," he said. Then, he turned to Abbie. "Can you tell me where the old saloon is? If all the grown-ups are there, I think that's a good place to start looking to find out what's happening, don't you?"

She looked at him suspiciously. "If you're a grown-up and you go there, you go all weird. So why do you want to know?"

He put a hand over both his hearts. "I won't go weird. Promise," he said.

Abbie still looked doubtful, but Will produced a piece of paper from a drawer in the store. "Over here, Mister," he said, waving the Doctor over. He drew a crude map and handed it back to the Doctor. "It's on the edge of the town, so you should find it okay if you just look for the building that looks like it's gonna fall over."

The Doctor folded the map and tucked it into his pocket. "Thanks," he grinned.

Will nodded. "You promise you can get the grown-ups back to normal?"

The Doctor nodded.

"Promise you won't go weird?"

He nodded again.

"Okay." And even Abbie relaxed when she saw that Will was smiling.

The Doctor rushed back out the doors, expecting to see Rose standing there and waiting for him.

She wasn't there. But there _was _a black car.

"Rose!" he shouted.

There was an answering shout, but instead of Rose, it was a young man's voice. And whoever belonged to it knew who he was, too, because he shouted back: "Doc?"


	2. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rights.

...

Sam kept _looking _at him.

Dean repositioned his hands on the steering wheel, drummed his fingers, then finally turned to his brother. "What?" he demanded.

"Nothing."

That was a lie.

They drove in silence a little while longer. Dean knew Sam was walking on eggshells around him, and he hated it. But Dean didn't know what to say to fix it. And how was he _supposed _to fix it? How was he supposed to forgive Sam for trading his life for someone else's? He was supposed to go down in the line of duty. No shame in it. Now some guy had a heart attack, Dean was up and walking, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he was running on borrowed time.

"You want some music?" Sam said at last. He didn't say anything clever about how he should update his casette tapes, and that's how Dean knew he was really in it deep with his little brother.

"Sure," he said.

Sam flipped through some channels on the radio, but they all seemed to be playing commercials for the moment.

"Hey," Dean said suddenly.

"What?" Sam turned, eyes wide, expecting.

Dean snorted at the look on his brother's face. Like he was just gonna start chick-flicking for no reason. "Thanks for having my back. Back there, I mean," he said. "That reaper woulda had me."

"Yeah."

They both knew it was an empty thank you. Sam must have been dying to ask, and Dean knew he couldn't answer, if Dean didn't wish the reaper had gone ahead and killed him. At least then he'd have died for someone who deserved to live. They'd both liked Layla.

But Dean didn't have an answer for questions like that.

"So this case," Sam said hesitantly as a lead-in.

Dean grinned, glad to have something to distract him. "So get this," he said. "This one just started happening, so Dad must have been there pretty recently."

"And?" Sam asked, but his gaze was more excited than usual.

"Looks like people are going missing. Maybe for only a few hours, or sometimes for a few days. And then when they come back, they're different."

"Different how?"

"Not sure," Dean said. "Most of the eyewitnesses are under the age of twelve."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Weird."

"Our kind of weird, maybe?" Dean said.

Sam leaned back with a sigh. "Your kind."

Dean frowned. He hated when Sam did that, when Sam distanced himself from the life. Was it so much to ask for Sam to be _happy _to be back in the saddle with his brother?

"Anyway, figure it's worth taking a look around," Dean said.

It was another long stretch of silence between them before they reached the small fishing town. It wasn't much to look at, but then, most of the towns they found their way into weren't. They weren't here for sightseeing, no matter what they told people.

"Feels deserted," Sam noted as they drove through.

"Not quite," Dean said. He pulled into a space in front of a small, eat-in place and pointed: there was a little girl in yellow rain boots skipping down the sidewalk.

Dean got out of the car and heard the click of the passenger side door as Sam followed his lead. He heard the nervous humming and realized then that the little girls wasn't as carefree as her skipping suggested, and when she saw Dean, she practically froze.

And then, the moment passed, and she put her hands on her hips. "Who are you? You don't belong here."

Dean laughed. "No, we're just visiting."

"From where?"

"Everywhere!" Dean said. He crouched down so he could be closer to her eye level. "Me and my brother Sammy are from all over the place. We like to go to new places all the time, like having adventures." He smiled. "What about you? What kind of adventures are you going on?"

She looked dubiously at him. "Only the kind of adventures where grown-ups get in trouble," she said at last.

"Oh, good," Dean said. "That's the kind me and Sammy like. We're good at saving grown-ups."

She didn't look like she believed him.

He sighed and tried a different approach. "What's your name?"

"Abbie."

He gave her one of his crooked smiles. "Well, Abbie, me and my brother haven't been here before, so we're kind of lost. Can you tell us where we can find an adventure?"

She sniffed, but she looked a little more relaxed. "All the grown-ups go to the saloon," she said.

He laughed. "Is that normal, or is this new?"

She didn't get the joke, so she put her hands on her hips again. "It's not funny. They go there all the time, and they think that us kids don't notice!"

She looked pretty insistent, so Dean stopped smiling. "Right. Yeah. Of course," he said quickly. "Do you know where it is?"

At that, Abbie stepped back. "Why?" Then, her frown deepened. "You don't want to go there too, do you?"

"Only so we can find the other grown-ups," Sam said.

Abbie turned and glared at Sam, and Dean couldn't help but laugh. She could be pretty intimidating if she wanted to be.

"Listen, Abbie," Dean said, turning her attention back his way. "Do you know if there are other kids around? Maybe we could talk to them and find out where their parents are?"

Abbie's gaze flickered toward the eat-in place, but then, hesitating, she said, "Tommy likes to go to the beach with his big sister sometimes."

Dean and Sam shared a look. They'd both seen the hesitation, and they didn't want to go on a wild goose chase, but it was worth chasing all leads, even if it came from a scared little girl. He jerked his head toward the beach, and Sam nodded and headed off to investigate. Dean turned his attention back to Abbie. "Hey," he said quietly, carefully. "We're not here to hurt you."

"You're a grown-up," she said as if that was all the explanation in the world.

"That's debatable," he said with a smile. "My brother says I'm five years old."

"You don't look five."

"Yeah, but he says I act like it," he said with a smile.

"Why?"

"Because life's no fun if you're not gluing your brother's toothbrush to the sink," Dean said.

She giggled.

"Are you headed in there?" Dean asked.

She nodded.

"Good food?"

"My best friend," she said. "He's funny. You'd like him."

"Can I meet him?"

She looked him over, then shook her head. "You're a grown-up," she said again.

"Yeah, I got that," he laughed.

"So you're going to disappear," she said. "I don't want you to do that."

"I'll try my best not to," he said.

She scrunched her nose at him, then sighed. "Tammy's parents were the first ones to disappear," she said, pointing at a little yellow house down the street. "If you want an adventure, maybe you should try there first?"

Dean grinned, glad that at last he was getting somewhere. "Think it'll be a scary adventure?"

She shuddered. "I hope not."

He stood up and brushed off his knees. "Thanks for your help."

"Don't get eated by anything, okay?" she said.

He laughed again.

He headed for the little yellow house for a while, then doubled back as soon as he thought it was probably safe. He ducked behind the Impala and watched as Abbie disappeared into the eat-in place.

"What're you up to?" he muttered. He figured he'd wait a little bit longer to see if she came back out with her best friend. Or maybe it was an imaginary friend. That could be worse. Sometimes imaginary friends were real.

He waited for a little bit longer before he saw someone come out. Someone tall enough to be an adult. Someone blonde.

"Rose," he breathed. The Doctor was here? Now? "Rose!" he called out, coming out from behind the Impala.

Rose turned toward him, and she saw the faint recognition blossom just behind her eyes. "Dean?"

He nodded, grinned, and fully intended to be there in two strides to wrap her in a hug. But someone else was faster than him. Out of nowhere, one of the adults from the town came around the corner, and then the guy had his hand on Rose's mouth and was dragging her away!

Dean started forward to go after her, but then something hit him, and he went down. Hard.


	3. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter Three

**A/N: I've realized not everyone knows this is the second part of a series (first part called Lifetime), so to help out, I've posted a "The Road So Far" bit on the first chapter so if you want to, you can catch up without reading part one. :)**

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Supernatural or any of the related rights.

...

The Doctor ran towards the voice. "Hello?" he called out. Will was close behind him, and then Abbie on his heels.

He was greeted with a groan as someone stood up from behind the car, rubbing his head ruefully. "Hey, Doc," that someone said again.

The recognition cogs in the back of his head clicked. "Dean?"

Dean nodded.

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked. Then, just as quickly, he asked, "Did you see where they took Rose?"

Dean shook his head, then winced. "Didn't see, sorry," he said through clenched teeth. "And in answer to your second question, me and Sam came here for the same reason you did. Came to investigate."

"We just came on accident," the Doctor pointed out.

"Right. You do that." Dean stopped rubbing his head. "You figure out what's going on around here? All we've got is some missing parents and scared kids."

The Doctor shook his head, but then Will tugged on the sleeve of his overcoat, and he turned with a smile.

"You said you were different than the other grown-ups," Will said. "So how come one of you has already disappeared?"

"I'll get her back," the Doctor said quickly. Of course he would.

But Abbie stared hard at Dean, like she'd seen him before.

Dean glanced down at Abbie like he'd just noticed her. "Hello again," he said.

"You were going to Tammy's house," she said accusingly.

"I decided to come back here and make sure you were okay," Dean said easily. "Didn't do a very good job," he added bitterly, then sucked air through his teeth. He looked at the Doctor. "Got any ice? A cold beer?"

The Doctor wanted to run after Rose, but he didn't know which way to go, and Dean was his best lead, so he just tilted his head at Will. He could feel both his hearts pounding in his head, could feel them shouting at him to go after her, to drop everything.

Will was also glaring at Dean, but the Doctor smiled at him, so Will waved them all inside. "We don't usually let strangers in here, especially not grown-ups," Will said by way of explanation. "Not unless they surprise us like you did."

"We'll try not to act too much like grown-ups," the Doctor promised.

Dean sat down gingerly in the chair by the Doctor, and when the Doctor reached to look at Dean's head, he winced away. "I'm fine," he said.

"Of course you are. You're always fine," the Doctor said, laughing. He'd only met Dean once before, and he remembered a very determined teenager back then. Little wonder he grew up to be this Dean.

Abbie and Will both looked suspiciously at Dean, turned to each other, whispered something actually inaudible, and then rushed off to the back of the place hand-in-hand.

"Right little secret agents, they are," the Doctor observed.

"Well, imagine having to handle something like this without any parents," Dean said.

Something told the Doctor that Dean didn't really have to imagine something like that. "Well, they're good kids. Maybe it just takes them a while to warm up to you. I, only the other hand," he said with an exaggerated puff of his chest, "have my good looks and charm to go on."

Dean laughed, then winced.

"Let me take a look at that."

"No."

"I'm a Doctor."

"It's just your name, not what you actually do," Dean said smartly.

The Doctor blinked at him.

Dean waved his hand impatiently. "Don't know where we are in the timeline. Apparently, we're never gonna meet in order. Short version: yeah, I'm caught up on you being a Time Lord and stuff."

The Doctor blinked again, then smiled. "Well, something to look forward to."

"That's the spirit," Dean laughed. He looked around. "So, where'd you park the TARDIS?"

The Doctor waved his hands. "Just outside town."

Dean nodded. "Can I see? I love that old box."

"Rose is missing," the Doctor said. Or hadn't Dean been paying attention? That was the most important thing, and here Dean was chatting!

"Right," Dean said like he'd forgotten. But then, he didn't look like he was altogether with it, looked a little dizzy, even.

"Did you get a good look at anything?" the Doctor asked gently.

Dean shook his head. "One of the parents showed up, and then next thing I know, I'm flat on the pavement."

The Doctor frowned. "Well, it seems like most of the parents were at some meeting in the saloon. Maybe we should . . . ." He trailed off and looked up when he saw someone approaching the door. The bell rang.

In walked a couple, arm-in-arm, talking about the usual day-to-day life things. They noticed the Doctor and Dean sitting at the counter, and the husband rushed to get behind the counter. "Sorry. How long have you been waiting?" he asked hurriedly.

"Are you Will's parents?" the Doctor asked. He looked them over. They were definitely related. Will had his dad's chin and his mum's eyes.

Something flashed in the man's eyes, but it passed. "Yes. Has he been minding the store for us while we were out? Sorry about that. Quick town meeting."

"What about?" Dean asked.

"The disappearances," he said without missing a beat.

Dean and the Doctor didn't have anything to say in response to that.

The bell above the door rang again, and all four of them looked up to see who had come in. This time, it was a small-town sheriff. He nodded his hat at both of the store owners, then looked Dean and the Doctor over. "What're you two doing here?" he asked.

Dean and the Doctor glanced at each other, and with a grin, Dean dug into his pocket for his ID. "Dean Panuzzo," he said. "My partner and I are working on a story for the _Daily Enquisition _about the weird things happening in your town."

The Doctor grinned and followed suit, showing his psychic paper. He saw the glint of jealousy in Dean's eyes and grinned again. Nice to not have to make his own IDs all the time. How did he ever survive without this little gem?

"We don't want anyone nosing around our business," the sheriff said stiffly.

"Fine. We'll just stop by the state police office on our way out, then," Dean said pointedly.

The sheriff sighed. He sat down in the stool nearest Dean and took off his hat. "Last one of them that got involved didn't come back," he said. "And you two will go the same way, if you're not careful."

The Doctor got the feeling the sheriff was talking more to him than to Dean.

The silence stretched on for a while, and both Dean and the Doctor held the sheriff's gaze. Finally, Dean relented. "I can tell when we're not wanted," he said. "C'mon, Doc."

The Doctor stared for a little longer at the sheriff, then reluctantly followed Dean.

"Got any ideas on what this is?" Dean asked once they were out of earshot. "Cuz if I hadn't seen someone attack Rose, I'd've thought those parents were pretty normal. Seemed more than willing to admit things are weird around here—even watched out for our safety."

The Doctor shook his heads. "Normal adults don't have the effect on children we've been seeing."

Dean's voice dropped, and he leaned in close to the Doctor. "Has it occurred to you that maybe the kids are the ones we should be worried about?"

The Doctor frowned and shook his head. He liked Will and Abbie, and they didn't seem to be too different.

Well, aside from the whole mistrust of adults and keeping secrets thing.

The Doctor came out of his thoughts when Dean beside him shouted "Sammy!" and rushed over to greet his brother.

Wow. Sammy had definitely grown up. The last time the Doctor saw him, he was just ten years old, and now? Now he was gigantic.

Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean, but then he looked up and saw the Doctor, and his whole face spread into a smile. "Doctor!" he shouted, rushing to clap him on the shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for Rose," the Doctor said. "She's gone missing. You haven't seen her, have you?"

Sam frowned. He looked from Dean to the Doctor, and he gave Dean a questioning look. "Let's compare notes."


	4. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter Four

A/N: OKAY. SO. I GOT A REQUEST FROM AN AGENT FOR A PARTIAL MANUSCRIPT. THIS IS A HAPPY THING. I AM CELEBRATING BY WRITING. HAVE A CHAPTER.

Also, related to the story: Yes. Yes, there is something off. Thanks for trusting me. Just wait. ;)

Disclaimer: I don'town the rights to Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rights.

...

Rose was faintly aware of where she was, but it was very hard to think, or even really to move.

She couldn't see very well. There was some kind of something all around her. It felt like it was partially organic, but it also felt technological. She'd probably been captured by some sort of techno-organic aliens or something. She'd seen weirder things.

She tried to force herself awake, to take in her surroundings, but the organic material seemed to realize that she was waking up, and then she smelled something funny.

Her head spun, and she felt her eyelids getting heavier.

But she felt something else, too, something like a psychic touch. And she'd traveled enough to know what those felt like. Something going through her memories. Something that felt like it was still connected to her.

She struggled to stand on her own feet, but still she felt more tired.

And then, just a few feet away from her, she heard a distinct moaning sound. It was faint, but it was definitely there.

She tried to call out, but her "hello" sounded more like "ungh." Still, it was at least audible.

There was an answering, questioning, "ungh" after a few second.

Someone else was there with her.

...

"You doing okay?"

The Doctor looked over at the younger Winchester brother. His eyes were wide and full of sympathy. A puppy dog look. The Doctor just frowned and shook his head. "They've got Rose somewhere," he said.

"Oh," Sam said. He looked after Dean, who had disappeared to get some supplies from the trunk of the Impala. "That's why you're so distracted."

"Distracted? Me?" The Doctor felt like he should have been offended, but he knew Sam was right. His head wasn't in the present, and he was itching to go after Rose. Usually by now he would have something to do, but as his only material witness was back at the diner and the rest of the population in the town refused to admit to anything more than the fact they had a problem, he felt like he was spinning his wheels.

Sam had related to the Doctor and Dean what he found out on the beaches. He'd met several of the adults on their way back from whatever meeting they'd had, and all of them seemed very open about the fact that there were disappearances. In fact, the only thing that seemed off about them was their determination to keep everything quiet and their apparent aversion to their own children.

The Doctor couldn't quite place why, but he felt like he'd dealt with this sort of thing before. But he was getting old, and it was hard to keep track of everything he'd seen and done in so many hundreds (or was it thousands? It was hard to keep track. He'd reset the clock at nine hundred when he met Rose, and he'd been counting his years since then) of years.

" 'S okay," Sam said. "Dean's head's not in it either."

The Doctor nodded. He'd noticed that too. Dean had always seemed aloof, but the kid he remembered also knew how to laugh and tease. And the Dean he remembered didn't ignore the big eyes Allie had been giving him.

(Lucky duck. Allie didn't seem to like the Doctor very much, no matter how he tried to win her over.)

"What happened?" the Doctor asked. He knew he probably shouldn't have asked that, but all he could see when he looked at the boys was the brothers who took on danger around them with a joke and a determination to save each other that was probably not healthy. Now, the determination was there, but where was the easy joking? How was he supposed to ignore that?

Sam looked out for his big brother, and when he didn't see Dean, he sighed. "Had a run-in with a reaper."

"Near-death experience?" the Doctor asked, remembering stories of the Grim Reaper and wondering if the boys really believed in that sort of thing.

Sam raised his eyebrows, then sighed. "Right. Dean said you were like that."

The Doctor wasn't sure what Sam meant. So he decided to change the subject. "It's a good thing we've got you on our side, then, huh, Sammy?" he asked with a smile.

"Don't call me that," Sam said, but it sounded hollow.

Dean reappeared with what looked like an old Walkman. It seemed to be some kind of electromagnetic gadget, and the Doctor remembered fondly a little boy who was very good at building things. He hadn't lost his touch, then.

"Okay," Dean said. "I've got all the stuff that'll find out if it's our kind of monster." He looked at the Doctor. "Still haven't figured out how to tell if they're your kind, though."

The Doctor laughed. "I don't have a catalogued system, if that's what you're asking."

"You should look into it," Dean said. He seemed a lot more relaxed now that they were away from the town's weird inhabitants.

"So you said the kids were talking about the adults reappearing differently?" Sam asked. He was suddenly a little taller, standing a little straighter, now that Dean was around. The Doctor was sure it wasn't a conscious thing, but he saw now what ten plus years of partnership had done to the, to the sass-mouthing Dean and the little brother who wanted to be a Time Lord lawyer.

"Yeah, but then when the adults got back they seemed scared of the kids," Dean said.

"The kids were more afraid of their parents, though," the Doctor amended. He wasn't a fan of Dean's _creepy kids _theory; it felt a little too horror-story-cliche.

Dean rolled his eyes. Then, suddenly, he turned to the Doctor. "What do you think? I mean, we can look for our kind of monsters our way, but you've got the TARDIS. Think she could scan for, I dunno, alien tech?"

The Doctor thought of Rose and the time they met Captain Jack Harkness. He thought of the Spock nickname and tried not to feel both happy at the memory and desperate at the thought of losing her. "The TARDIS doesn't work like that."

"You sure there's nothing in there we can use?"

"Let's try what you've got first," the Doctor said. Something was off about this whole thing, the situation, the Winchesters, and the Doctor was trying to put his finger on it. "Some good old fashioned legwork never hurt anyone, did it?"

Dean nodded, but he didn't look happy about it.

The Doctor looked at Dean and Sam, gauged the distance between them, and thought he could almost hear the cogs in his mind clicking together.

Sam and Dean exchanged a few gadgets wordlessly, like they'd done this a hundred times and didn't need words for something so easy. They were both ready in a few moments, and the Doctor was already headed back for Will's place when they had finished.

"Where you headed?" Dean called after him.

"I'm investigating on my own. You two can play monster hunters while I'm gone, but I'm going to get some answers."

Dean looked offended, but Sam didn't look surprised.

"You sure it's a good idea to split up?" Dean called after him.

The Doctor frowned. No, it wasn't a good idea. But he had a hunch, and he didn't exactly want the Winchesters in on it.


	5. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter Five

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rights.

...

Dean couldn't see where he was, but it was hard to think, or even move.

He couldn't see much, but he could feel something all around him. Sort of mushy, like some monster's insides. Or leftovers. Felt like it had probably been alive at one point. Might still be alive, actually. He groaned. Not even an hour into the hunt and he'd found the thing's lair. And here he'd been thinking maybe it might be the Doctor's kind of monsters when he'd seen Rose. Might still be, but judging by the squishy insides, he wasn't so sure.

He tried to force himself awake, to take in his surroundings, but then he smelled something funny.

His head hurt, he felt dizzy, and he felt his eyelids getting heavier.

But he felt something else, too, something in his head. Something like what he'd felt like when the angels messed with him.

He struggled to stand on his own feet, but that only made him feel more tired.

He groaned again, frustrated.

And then, just a few feet away, he heard an answering sound. It was quiet, but it was definitely there.

He tried to shout back, but his "hey" ended up more like "urgh." He thumped his head against the side of whatever he was in. Real smooth.

He had to get out of there. He needed a plan.

Because someone else was there with him.

...

Sam sighed and followed Dean. "What are we doing?" he asked. He tried not to sound too annoyed, but he'd just about had it with Dean's antics. If he wasn't trying to be nice, he would have made him stop and explain himself.

Dean had been acting weird ever since the Doctor showed up. Well, no, that wasn't quite true. He'd been acting weird since the rawhead incident. The one where he got electrocuted, not the one where the Doctor showed up.

Sam winced at the memory. Dean didn't have very good luck hunting rawheads, did he?

"First rule of the hunt: don't split with the Doc," Dean said through the corner of his mouth. "Either you'll get in trouble or he will."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "That's basic Hunting 101."

"It's a whole different level with the Doctor," Dean said.

"So your solution is to tail him?" Sam pointed out.

Dean just glared at him.

Sam fell into silence. Like Dean didn't want to let the Doctor out of his sights. Like he needed to be closer to the guy. If Sam didn't know better, he'd say Dean was . . . clingy. Which was so not Dean that Sam couldn't even believe he'd thought it.

"Dean," he tried again.

Dean held up a hand to shush him.

Sam frowned. Something was up with his brother.

"Dean," he said, more insistently, grabbing his brother's shoulder.

Dean turned towards him, and there was _something _in his eyes that actually scared Sam.

It was a gut reaction, but Sam was glad for it. He lashed out almost automatically, and his fist found Dean's jaw. Dean went sprawling, and Sam sprang to his feet, ready for the backlash.

Dean was faster to react than Sam gave him credit for . . . and fiercer. Sam had expected Dean to get back at him, but _this_? This was different. Like Dean was actually trying to kill him. That was why Sam wasn't quite ready for the shotgun barrel in the chest.

Sam fell on his back and felt all the breath rush out in a huff. He rolled away as Dean smashed the barrel into the ground right where Sam's face should have been. Dean didn't even look fazed. Not angry, not annoyed, not anything. Dispassionate was the word for it.

So this was what the kids meant when they said the adults went weird.

"You're not Dean," Sam said. He felt stupid. He _should _have known it wasn't Dean much sooner, but Dean had been so distant since the thing with the reaper Sam just thought it was more of Dean pretending he wasn't bothered when he was. Stupid, stupid.

He dived at his brother. Skin-changer? He grabbed his silver knife and slashed at his brother's leg.

Barely scratched the surface, but it should have been enough for a skin-changer. Instead, Sam just got a faceful of boot.

Not-Dean just grinned lopsidedly. "Thought it would take you longer to catch on," he said. He rapped Dean's head with his knuckles. "You're all this kid thinks about," he said. "You are your dad." Dean laughed hollowly. "I would've thought you would be the first to catch on, not that Time Lord."

"Time Lord?" Sam repeated. "So, not a demon, then?" He tried not to sound too relieved. If this was a Doctor monster, he was hoping that would be a good thing for his brother.

Dean made some kind of weird hissing noise.

"I'll take that as a no," Sam said. He reached for the shotgun, and even though Dean saw it coming, Sam was a hunter. He had fast instincts. He had the shotgun trained at Dean in a second, and Dean hissed his displeasure.

"What are you going to do?" Dean hissed. "Shoot me?"

"Get out of my brother," Sam said through gritted teeth.

Dean just laughed and looked somewhere beyond Sam. Sam turned, ready for anything, listening for Dean in case he tried to come after Sam while he was distracted.

Well, he _thought _he was ready for anything.

"Rose?"

And there she was. Her clothes were dripping wet, and she looked much worse for the wear. She had a huge bruise across her forehead, and she stumbled when she tried to walk forward. "Dean. Sam," she breathed.

"You look great," Dean said with a smile.

Sam's eyes widened.

"Don't I?" Rose asked. And, suddenly, she stood straighter, looked less tired.

She wasn't Rose.

Rose looked dispassionately at Sam. She blinked, straightened her shoulders, and said, "I guess he'll do."

He frowned, straightened his shoulders, and leveled the shotgun.

"We've been through this," Dean said. "You won't hurt Dean."

Sam fired.

Dean went down, flat on his back, groaning.

Sam grinned through the corner of his mouth at a shocked Rose. "Salt rounds," he explained.

Rose hissed at him, but her eyes were on Dean, not on the shotgun. She didn't seem to be as put off by the salt rounds as Sam hoped she would be. So, almost definitely not one of their monsters. More Doctor-type.

"Stay where you are," Sam ordered when Dean started to get back up. He bared his teeth. "You two aren't going anywhere til I get some answers. And then you'll get out of my brother and my friend."

Both of them laughed. And this time he heard someone else laughing. Sam turned, careful not to turn too far from Rose and Dean, to see the town sheriff . . . and his posse.

Sam stood his ground. He at least knew the shotgun could knock them down, even if it didn't kill them, and he swiveled back and forth from the sheriff and his men to the Dean and Rose impersonators. "So you're not skin-changers or demons. Aliens, then?"

"Clever," Rose said. She bared her teeth at him and made an inhuman gurgling noise.

"What're you after?"

Rose laughed. "We were hoping to attract enough attention for maybe some low-level federal agents to come investigating. Just enough to get our foot in the door." She laughed again. "So imagine our surprise when we attracted the attention of a Time Lord!"

"And a working TARDIS," Dean said, licking his lips.

"The Doctor's gonna know it's not you," Sam said. And realization hit him. "He already suspects Dean. That's why he split."

Dean glared at him and then at one of the adults. "It's his fault," he said, pointing. "He was supposed to take you out when you first got here. Nice and clean, no fuss, just carry you off back to the ship."

"What stopped him?"

Rose laughed. "I did."

Sam raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, don't look so surprised," Rose said, waving her hand. "As soon as we learned from your brother's memories that you had a Time Lord around, I knew we had a chance to get off this miserable planet." She licked her lips. "There was always a chance the Time Lord would catch on. So we thought we'd hold you in reserve."

"Just in case," Dean chimed in.

Sam swallowed hard. Counted the men and women around him. Knew he was probably going down, no matter what kind of fight he put up.

Didn't mean he wasn't going to fight anyway.


	6. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter Six

A/N: Yes, I've been marathoning Classic Who, and yes, I specifically rewatched some episodes of that and Supernatural recently to make sure I did these villains and the character interactions right. :) I maybe put a little more effort into this fic than is probably healthy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rights.

It definitely seemed like the kind of hidey-hole he would have loved when he was a kid.

It looked like it might have been the beginnings of a treehouse once, but then it was neglected and left to stand as a monument to projects that might have been finished (the Doctor knew a lot about those). But it wasn't old enough to sprout the nests of spiders or other creepy-crawlies to keep kids out.

The Doctor couldn't help but grin despite everything. Yes, he would have liked this. And back in another time, back before they were called the Doctor and the Master . . . well, that was a long time ago. Back when the only thing they fought about was whose turn it was to be Rassilon in their games of make-believe. Or who was the faster runner (to be settled only by a contest, of course).

But that was a long time ago. Hundreds (or was it thousands? He really couldn't keep track) of years ago.

He heard hushed whispers, giggles, and then shushing as he approached. The shushing grew more insistent, and the tremor of the whispered voices changed to one of fear the closer the Doctor got.

"Hello!" he called out, wiggling his fingers in greeting and trying to smile in a way that would best show that he wasn't "weirdified" or whatever it was the kids called it.

The Doctor wasn't surprised to see that it was Will who stuck his head out first. He looked the Doctor over and, in a voice that betrayed how scared he was even though his face managed not to show it, asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I think one of my friends might have been . . . turned weird," the Doctor said. "I wanted to see if you knew anything that might help."

Will looked at him long and hard. But before Will could say anything, Allie poked her head outside as well, and her eyes were filled with terror. "Did the monsters get the nice men in the black car?"

The Doctor smiled at the description. "I think they might have got one of them," he said carefully. "Can you tell me more about what happens when people are turned weird?" He sat down cross-legged outside of the little fort far enough away that he wouldn't be threatening but close enough to talk with them.

Allie came out, and the Doctor thought he could see other faces in their little fort, but he didn't try too hard to look inside, just in case he scared someone. She sat down, determined, with her legs crossed. She put on her most serious expression, tented her hands, and looked at him hard. "If you go weird, it means the only thing that matters to you is what Miss Thomason tells you to do. It doesn't matter if you're a mommy or daddy, either, so me and Will and some other kids are trying to take care of the really little kids because their mommies and daddies don't care."

"Who's Miss Thomason?" the Doctor asked.

"Her great-great-grandpa used to own the saloon," Will explained. "She went to the big city to try and buy some things to make the saloon a museum. She bought lots of old things, and me and Allie think maybe some of them were haunted or cursed or something, because that's when weird things started happening. When Miss Thomason came back from the city."

"And why didn't you tell us any of this before?" the Doctor asked.

Allie screwed her face up. "Because you're a grown up," she said. "And you mighta told Miss Thomason that we tattled on her."

The Doctor swallowed his annoyance and sighed. "Where does she live?"

"She spends lots of time up at the saloon," Allie said. Her eyes were wide. "Are you going up there too?"

"If that's where all this trouble started, then yes, I am," the Doctor said.

"That's a bad place," Will said, his eyes wide.

"That's probably where they have Rose," the Doctor said. "And Dean," he added. "So I've got to go."

Allie frowned. Then, quietly, slowly, she asked, "Are you a policeman?"

The Doctor raised one eyebrow. "What makes you ask that?"

"Cuz you're trying to fix it, and my mom says that policemen are strangers that are good guys."

The Doctor just laughed. "No, I'm just the Doctor."

"Doctors are good, too," Will observed.

"I like to think so," the Doctor said. He stood up and brushed his pants off. "Thanks for your help," he said.

"Don't tell nobody where our hiding spot is," Will said. "We had to change hiding spots when the grown ups found us last time."

"Mum's the word," he promised.

Even Allie smiled at him.

The Doctor stalked off towards the edge of town with his hands in his pockets and a scowl on his face. This all felt very familiar, but if these creatures were what he thought they were, they were being incredibly sloppy about it. Leaving the kids behind and letting them talk with investigators? Sloppy, sloppy work.

A sudden thought occurred to the Doctor, and he had to suppress a shudder. Perfectly sloppy work, this business. Just sloppy enough to attract attention but not enough to cause a big fuss. Enough to send in some investigators if it continued . . . . Maybe UNIT or some other task force. Something small, so that there wouldn't be as many people to replace.

He took a deep breath. "Clever," he muttered under his breath.

He was just headed around the corner when he heard someone shout his name: "Doctor!"

He turned around, surprised both at whose voice it was and at the urgency.

And then he just about lost his head.

She was standing there beside him, her arm draped over his shoulder, her legs shaky, her forehead heavily bruised, her outfit torn in places. She looked like she could hardly keep herself conscious long enough to make it to him, so he decided to close the distance for her.

He was there in only a few long strides, holding out his arms, letting her fall with him as gravity did the work. He knelt with his knees supporting her back and watched in horror as she smiled softly at his face and then lost consciousness.

His hands were shaking. "What. Happened?" he asked through clenched teeth, hardly daring to look up at the Winchester next to him for fear that he might lash out and drop Rose in the process.

"I'm not sure," Sam said. "Me and Dean went to go check out some of the adults around here, see if they're silver- or iron-intolerant, you know, and then we spotted her."

"Where was she?" This couldn't be happening, not now. Not when he knew where she was, not why he'd finally figured out why it was taking so long to get some answers around here. He was supposed to find her safe and sound. Not like this.

"On the beach. Not far from here," Sam said, pointing.

"Coming back from the saloon?" the Doctor asked. "You met some people going that way when you first got here, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Sam said. He hesitated, shuffled his feet. "Hey, Doctor," he said at last. "What did they do to Dean?"

The Doctor looked up and looked for the panic and desperation that he knew must have been there. Those two boys were inseparable as kids, and it looked like that had only gotten stronger the older they got.

"That wasn't Dean," the Doctor said at last. "It only looked like him."

Sam looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but just then, Rose moaned weakly.

Sam looked down at Rose and looked torn before he set his jaw. "We should get her to the TARDIS."

The Doctor blinked at Sam and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"You want to take her to any of the hospitals around here?" Sam pointed out. "The adults would take her back wherever they had her before in a heartbeat."

The Doctor didn't have an argument for that, but he couldn't fight the nagging suspicion that something was wrong. If Rose were awake, she could probably tell him what it was. She'd figure it out in a second. He stood, slowly, scooping her up into his arms to carry her.

Something still didn't feel right.

He looked down at her, his Rose, and knew he was just on high alert because she was hurt, because she was . . . .

She wasn't Rose.


	7. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter Seven

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Supernatural or any of the other rights.

...

There was some kind of pressure release, and Dean locked his legs to keep from falling over when the stuff around him moved away so that it was no longer supporting him. He gritted his teeth and tried very hard to see when the sudden light was hurting his eyes.

His head was killing him.

He regained feeling in his arms long before he regained his sight, but that was probably because he could feel something that felt like a weird octopus-human hybrid or something grabbing his arms to drag him out of wherever he'd been standing.

"Leggo," he said through gritted teeth and summoned all his strength to _pull_.

The thing fell on top of him, and Dean grunted with grim satisfaction. He could still put up a fight, groggy as he was.

He scrambled to his knees, which was about as far as he could get. Sure, it wasn't all that dignified, but it was much more dignified probably than whatever they were up to. Which was probably some way of killing him. That had been Dean's experience, at least.

He kept scrambling and even managed to push himself to his feet as his heart got pumping again and the adrenaline kicked into his system. He got a good look at one of them when he punched it right in its springy face, and it was uglier than he'd thought when he first saw it grabbing out him out of the corner of his eye.

It was red, and its face was all squished into its massive, sucker-y head. The entire outline of the thing was basically suckers, actually, like someone had a fetish for toilet plungers. The thing hissed at him again, and he scrambled out of the way, blindly trying to find the nearest way out.

He was starting to think that this was probably a Doctor problem, giving all the shiny lights and the equipment. Sure, it was kind of organic-looking and rather slimy, but those were definitely controls to open the door.

He jammed his fist into the controls first; that was the easiest way out of things, in his professional experience. And then he kicked the door and pressed some buttons. Something he tried must have worked, because he managed to get all the way through the door and slam it just in time before more red sucker creatures came after him.

"C'mon, Doc," he muttered under his breath. "Where _are _you?"

He reached for the gun he usually carried in his back pocket, but it wasn't there anymore. No matter. He always carried a few extra goodies in case of emergency. And Sam thought he was paranoid.

He drove a knife deep into the door controls on the other side. "There," he said. "That oughta hold you for a little while, at least." He took a brief second to survey his handiwork, and then he went back to business.

He surveyed the room and saw, along the wall, rows of more of the stuff Dean had been trapped in just before. And there were feet poking out the bottom in places!

Dean frowned and looked back through the window in the door. Yep. There was more of that stuff. And probably more people. He'd just made it into the adjoining room, no further.

Well, if nothing else, it'd be nice to have some backup. Time to save people, even if he had no idea how to hunt those things on the other side of the door.

Alarms were blaring now, and he knew there was a very good chance he'd get caught. And he didn't really understand all the buttons and things, so he just grabbed someone's ankles and pulled, careful to catch the guy's back so he didn't hit his head as he fell. Didn't want to knock him out again, after all.

Dean blinked in surprise when he saw who it was. That was the guy that took Rose!

He started to ball his hands up in fists, but then the guy groaned and muttered something that sounded like "What happened? Where am I?"

"Looks like your pals turned on you," Dean muttered, relaxing slightly, but still ready to take him out if he had to.

"What?" The guy sat up and looked around, his eyes wide and terrified. "What is this place?"

Dean faltered slightly. It was hard to fake that kind of terror. "Look," he said harshly. "I saw you take down my friend. If you'll just tell me where she is, maybe we can work together to get out of this."

"What?" That last question was more of a breath than actual words. The guy squinted at Dean like he had just now noticed Dean was there. "Who are you?"

_Thump thump thump. _It sounded like the red sucker guys were starting to break through. Dean blew out all his breath in annoyance. "I don't have time for this," he said, leaving the sniveling weirdo to figure out his own problems.

The next set of feet were more petite, with pink sneakers. He pulled on the ankles and caught her back . . . and then promptly almost dropped her anyway.

"_Rose_?"

Rose groaned feebly and grabbed his shirt. "Hey, Plaid Guy," she said with a smile.

"Hey yourself," he said, not sure what she meant by the nickname but glad she was awake nonetheless. "You've been kidnapped by some pretty weird looking aliens, and the guy who did the kidnapping isn't saying anything. Just to catch you up to speed." He glanced up at the door and saw, to his surprise, that the alien things had stopped thumping on it. Weird.

"Sounds about right," Rose said. She used his shoulder as a lever to pull herself up to her feet. She wobbled a bit, but she leaned on the wall to cover up for it. "So. Way out?"

He gestured towards the door on the other end of the room. "Probably that way. I just came from this one," he said, pointing to the nearer door, "and there's some pretty angry aliens on the other side of it."

Rose made her way to the door while Dean started pulling more people out of their little pod things. He didn't bother trying to get anyone talking or doing anything like that. He just pulled and went on to the next thing.

"How come you stuck your knife in that one?" Rose asked.

"Slowed 'em down," Dean said with a shrug.

"Seems a little . . . ." Rose waved her hand to show that she couldn't come up with the word she was looking for.

Dean laughed. "That's me."

"Can't argue with that."

"Excuse me?"

Dean and Rose both turned with a start towards the guy who had until then been shriveled up like a terrified rat. "What? You gonna apologize to Rose now?"

The guy seemed to shrink under Dean's gaze, but then he got back up his courage. "I don't know who either of you are," he said. "But it looks like you're trying to get out of here, and I'd like to help."

The others around him, all in various stages of getting over their grogginess, nodded their agreement.

Dean grinned at Rose. "Well, looks like we got ourselves an army," he said.

She smiled patiently at him, but he could tell she was still a little tired. "I'll just man this door, shall I?" she asked.

Dean settled down with a smile and rubbed his hands. "Okay," he said. "Everybody tell me who you are and what special skills you might have. We'll need everything we can get."

...

Sam couldn't see where he was, but it was hard to think, or even move.

He couldn't see much, but he could feel something all around him. Sort of mushy, like some monster's lair. Like something alive. Might still be alive, actually. He groaned. How had he gotten himself into this?

He tried to force himself awake, to take in his surroundings, but then he smelled something funny.

His head hurt, he felt dizzy, and he felt his eyelids getting heavier.

But he felt something else, too, something in his head. Something more than the usual stuff, the headaches and the _thing _sitting just back there that he tried to pretend wasn't there.

He struggled to stand on his own feet, but that only made the headache worse. Not vision-headache worthy, but still pretty bad.

He groaned again, frustrated.

And then, suddenly, there was a new sound. A loud, strumming, insistent sound, like an alarm.

He tried to shout, to draw attention, but his "hey" ended up more like "ahh." He thumped his head against the side of whatever he was in. Why couldn't he move?

He had to get out of there. He needed a plan.

Because it had to be Dean out there. The real Dean. He knew it was.

A/N: If you're noticing a pattern, it's because I think I'm clever.


	8. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter Eight

A/N: Didn't post the chapter first thing this morning like I usually do because, in my defense, I was working like mad on a new novel idea involving a dystopian society in which superheroes are governmentally controlled and a Hero and a Villain fall in love. So yeah, forgot to post. ;)

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Supernatural or any of the related rights.

...

He kept hold of the Rose pretender tightly, trying to work out a plan.

"Where are we going?" Sam shouted after them.

He wasn't sure if Sam was the real Sam or not, so he just shouted back, "To the TARDIS!"

"You parked the TARDIS out here?" Sam asked. He was struggling to keep up; he looked like he'd been hurt recently.

"Scenic, don't you think?" the Doctor called back.

They were climbing over the craggy rocks on the shore, and the wind was picking up the ocean waves. If they just kept heading north, the Doctor would spot the saloon . . . he hoped. Or he'd spot something else. It was just guesswork, this plan slowly forming in his head, and it was hard to work it out when he was carrying someone who'd stolen Rose's face.

He thought about calling the Rose double out on her deception, but he didn't know what they'd do to Rose if he did. He had an idea of _where _Rose was, though, and if he just kept walking . . . .

Sam finally caught up to the Doctor. "What's going on, Doctor?" he asked through heavy breaths. "What happened to my brother?"

_Probably the same thing they did to Rose. And maybe to you_. But the Doctor didn't say anything.

"Where's the TARDIS?" Sam asked.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

"Doctor," Sam said. "This is no time to keep secrets!"

He looked down at the Rose double in his arms. She seemed to be sleeping soundly, but there was no furtive movement just under her eyelids, and there wasn't the relaxation of unconsciousness to explain that away. She was awake, that was for sure, and she wasn't hurt. At least, not as much as she pretended to be.

That was probably what tipped him off first. That and the fact that _his _Rose couldn't possibly be hurt; that couldn't be true.

_His _Rose was strong and would be more concerned with what was going on in this town. _His _Rose looked at him differently than this Rose did. _His _Rose would have smiled at him. _His _Rose wasn't helpless.

And once he'd got it in his head that the girl he was holding wasn't his Rose, it was easy to pick out other signs.

The nervous deference Sam gave her. The faked unconsciousness. The way her face seemed less . . . bright . . . less Rose-ish.

He set her down, gently, on the rocks. "I'll be back," he told Sam. "I'm just going to look ahead."

"I can do that," Sam said.

"I'm faster than you are," the Doctor said. "At least right now. And my arms need a break." He flashed his best dazzling smile and took off before Sam could ask any embarrassing questions he didn't have answers for yet.

As soon as he disappeared over the top of the hill, he took off running as fast as his legs could carry him. Sam wasn't faking his injury; the real Sam probably hurt him. Or maybe the real Dean. It was hard to keep track. Either way, it meant the fake Sam wouldn't be able to catch up to him for at least a little bit, enough to give him a head start. As long as they didn't try to shoot at him.

They would wait for a little bit, wondering if he really was just scouting ahead or if he'd figured out their deception; that would give him some time to work with as well.

He kept running as fast as he could, measuring his steps, measuring his breaths, trying to keep from making too much noise. He needed time, he needed a head start.

He could see the outline of the saloon now, and it finally occurred to him that there were, in fact, probably an entire town's worth of people in the saloon waiting for him, all of whom were probably connected and would know as soon as the others realized he'd bolted.

Well, he'd gotten himself out of worse scrapes than this. He just had to make sure he got Rose out as well. And the Winchesters.

He heard a shout from somewhere far behind him and decided to throw caution to the wind. With much noise and now heavy breathing, he made it to the saloon, burst through the doors, and declared: "Hello! I'm the Doctor!"

Everyone in the saloon turned to look at him, and you could hear a pin drop.

He grinned and skipped to the nearest table, leaning over on both hands. He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Now," he said, "don't be alarmed, but this place is infested with Zygons."

The people at the table stared back at him dispassionately.

He pulled away from the table and flung his arms out expansively. "And do you know how I know?" He directed his voice at anything that seemed like it might be a good place to hide a camera or listening device of any sort. He then directed his comments to a new set of people along the bar stools. "Because I know Rose Tyler. And yours is a _poor copy _of the original." He said that last part with particular relish.

Finally, one of the Zygons (the one nearer the back door) spoke up: "What are you doing here, Time Lord?"

The Doctor plopped himself down on the nearest countertop. "I think the better question is: What are _you _lot doing here?" he asked. "Long way from home, isn't it? And you're not even taking over anyplace important. What are you doing here? Another destroy-the-world plot? Don't tell me you've got another Loch Ness Monster hiding out in the ocean!" He gestured vaguely towards the sea.

"We have learned from our past mistakes on Earth," the Zygon hissed. "Outright force is not necessary where stealth is an option."

"Well," the Doctor said slowly, "I can't say I disagree with you, but I'm still at a loss to figure out why you need this small town."

"We got you here, didn't we?" the Zygon asked.

"Yeah, but I just showed up here on accident," the Doctor said. "You couldn't possibly have known that a Time Lord would land here."

"We knew we would attract enough attention to warrant investigation," the Zygon said. "We have found that the earth creatures are more likely to investigate if they believe their children are in danger."

The Doctor nodded his understanding. "Ah, I see! So if the kids knew something was wrong with their parents, they'd go somewhere for hep, and you'd get some nice police officers to copy or something." He waved his hand to dismiss the plan. "That's not very helpful."

"We have grander ambitions than a local police force."

"That much was obvious," the Doctor said patiently.

"You have already seen that we can attract the attention of a pair of hunters. We have been visited also by the CDC in case the 'weirdness' the children reported was some kind of disease. We had hoped to attract a federal investigation by staging a mass disappearance, but your arrival has changed our plans."

"That's me. The Plan-Wrecker," the Doctor said, then winced. "No, don't call me that." He made a mental note to do a sweep of the Earth for more Zygons. If they were infiltrating higher offices and being sneaky all of a sudden, he'd have to sniff them out. And probably tell the Brigadier, if nothing else.

The Doctor heard the door burst open, and he spun around to see Rose standing there. But she definitely wasn't Rose. The look on her face . . . like she was reveling in her apparent triumph. Like he was an ant to be squashed. That wasn't a Rose look.

"Doctor," she said, throwing her arms out expansively. "How good of you to join us."

"You're not Rose, so stop pretending to be."

Rose just laughed. "Why?"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "Because it's very dangerous to go around wearing the face of someone I care about."

Rose just shrugged. "Tell me, Doctor. How long have you known?"

"Not long," he said. "I'll admit, I was slower to pick up on the cues, but that's just because you threw the Winchesters in the mix. Those boys have a . . . particular talent for finding the more abnormal creatures." He flashed another smile, but this one was laced with all the hidden malice he could muster. Because she was still wearing Rose's face. "So," he said suddenly, "what's the new plan, then? Got a Time Lord now, haven't you? And don't think I didn't notice how badly you and your lackeys wanted the TARDIS. You've got something cooking."

Rose opened her mouth, but then the ground underneath them rumbled. When the rumbling stopped, she whirled around to shout at the nearest Zygon (who happened to look like Sam at the time), "What happened?"

The Doctor couldn't resist grinning. "That," he said, "was Rose Tyler and the Winchesters. I'd bet my shoelaces."


	9. Book One: Trust Nobody, Chapter Nine

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rigths.

...

Dean grinned at Rose and high-fived her. "How'd you know that was the on button?"

Rose pointed at her head with a smile. "The TARDIS translates alien languages in my head. So I can read the controls."

"Much more effective than a knife in the control pad," he laughed.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his hand as he kept up along behind her, grinning. This was starting to be fun.

"How long do you think that'll keep them busy?" Dean asked.

Rose shrugged. "I'm not sure. I just figured out how to turn the engines on, and then I flicked a few more switches. This ship isn't taking off or nothing." She grinned. "I think they'll be more distracted by the explosives you and the others worked up."

He shrugged with false modesty. She rolled her eyes at him.

It was easy, this. Falling into friendship again. Side by side, running from the monsters. He almost missed it. Almost wished . . . .

No, but he had to find Dad. That was what he was supposed to be doing, not running in the stars.

They made their way through the next door and found themselves back in the room where Dean had found Rose. (He recognized the knife embedded in the door controls.)

Dean peered through the door and smiled grimly when he saw that there were still plenty of red suckery creatures on the other side of it. Less than before, yeah, but still enough to contend with.

"Dean," Rose whispered, waving him over.

She'd found some sort of visual device, and to their surprise, there was the Doctor!

"Can you fiddle around with the controls? Can we hear what he's saying? See more of what's out there?" Dean asked, coming up behind Rose. He may have casually reached around her, too.

"This is harder than it looks," Rose said with her tongue in the corner of her mouth.

"You can't stop us, Doctor. You may cripple our ship, but we already have our operatives in place," said someone who wasn't visible on their screen but sounded kinda like Rose.

"And I've got friend in high places who know how to track you lot down," the Doctor countered.

Rose and Dean grinned at each other. It worked!

"We are not the last ones to come through, though perhaps we are the first," that someone countered.

"Can we see who he's talking to?" Dean whispered. He probably didn't have to get that close to her to whisper, but she hadn't shoved him off yet.

Rose bit her lip and fiddled with a few controls, and then they saw them. Sam and Rose. Only not Sam and Rose.

"Figure why they podded us," Dean said under his breath.

"Keep the source material around," Rose nodded her agreement.

Dean frowned. That meant Sam was in one of those pods. He rushed to the window and looked through at the red alien things, but this time, he looked past them to study the feet sticking out of the only pods he and Rose hadn't got to yet.

Yep. Sure enough, there were those stupid Stanford sneakers.

Dean yanked his knife out of the control pad. Behind him, he could hear the Doctor saying, "This is your one chance. You can leave this place, let these people live, and I can help you work out a peaceful solution."

Rose turned around to look at him. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"Sam's in there," he said, pointing through the door.

Rose's expression changed. "What are you planning to do?"

"Get Sam back," he said simply. "You stay here and see if you can figure out a way to let the Doctor know we're here. Maybe he can clear us a path out."

Rose didn't look like she wanted to stay put, but Dean wasn't gonna give her another option. Knife in hand, he took off running through the un-jammed door.

He had a basic idea of how the layout of this place went. Sort of circular. And there had been a door on the other side of the room he'd woken up in, so he should be able to make his way across.

He passed some of their fellow ex-prisoners as he ran past. One of them asked what he was doing, but he didn't reply, just muscled his way through a door that a few aliens were trying to get into.

He made short work of them.

The blood was pumping in his ears and _this was hunting. _This was the rush of creatures realizing you were a threat, the satisfying slice and thunk of knifework. He didn't know what these things were, but they could definitely be killed, and it was almost like a dance now. Disordered by the explosions, confused by the alarms, thrown off by a human who had until then been a captive, these aliens were nothing. Not nearly as terrifying as half the things he'd faced, now that he could see them face-to-face.

He was pretty well covered in red stuff by the time he found the right door; he'd probably been through every room on the ship. Maybe it was blood; maybe it was something else. He wasn't really sure.

The aliens already saw him coming, and they were better prepared than the rest. But they had one distinct disadvantage. They were between him and Sam.

He heard a buzz like electricity and hit the floor, rolled with the motion, and knocked into the first alien as he did so. The goal wasn't to take 'em all down, just get to Sam and get him awake enough to help. There was a satisfying_squelch _as he drove the knife through, and the another when a new alien tried to take him on.

Someone grabbed his legs, and he went crashing into the ground. He heard the hum of something that he knew was gonna hurt and gritted his teeth and wondered how many friggin' times he was gonna get electrocuted before he went when the alarms cut out, and the sudden silence was so surprising that it stopped both Dean and the aliens.

"Are you listening in there, Zygons?"

"Doctor?" Dean choked. What was he doing there? And what were Zygons?

"This is your only chance. Let the last of the humans you've captured go, and I'll take you to another planet, somewhere you can live in peace." There was a long, thin, almost stretched pause. Then, with a heavy sigh, the Doctor added, "Your leaders are dead."

"Dead?" hissed the alien (Zygon?) sitting on top of Dean. "How?"

"I tried to stop her," the Doctor said. "The first woman you copied. Miss Thomason."

The Doctor didn't say anything else, but Dean knew what had happened.

The Zygons around Dean hissed their displeasure.

"But it doesn't have to be this way. There should be no more killing. You don't have to fight each other. Maybe we can work something out. You can _coexist_with the humans here."

Dean snorted. Same ol' Doctor.

The Zygons had the same reaction, though theirs was a mix of snorting and laughter.

The Doctor gave another heavy sigh. "Don't say I didn't warn you. Rose?"

Dean didn't know what Rose did, but the next thing he knew, there was a hiss as the pods behind him opened, and that was enough of a distraction for Dean to knock the Zygon off his back and run to his brother's side, propping him up. "Sammy?"

"Hey, Dean."

He felt more than breathed the sigh of relief. His whole body relaxed. Sam was okay.

And then he was on high alert again, because the alarms were going off. They sounded very much like a self-destruct.

"Time to get out of here," he whispered to Sam.

The Zygons were trying desperately to reroute the self-destruct signal, which gave Dean enough time to get his brother and a few other prisoners out of the room. He jammed his knife into the door controls again. Those Zygons weren't going anywhere.

"Can you run?"

Sam was already pushing off of Dean, trying to run on his own steam. Of course he could. Kid was a trooper.

...

He didn't stay long in the water, not after he'd washed all that blood off (enough to attract the attention of every marine predator in a hundred miles). He'd been lucky; the ash and the debris had been enough to coat him in stuff that wasn't red, and his jacket got the worst of it anyway, so he'd taken it off before he got out of the ship and folded it up under his arm.

Rose was waiting on the shore, regarding him with cool displeasure.

"Hey," he said simply, because he had a feeling he knew why she was giving him that look.

"I'm starting to think the Doctor was right about you the first time we met," Rose said. She seemed sad.

"You're not going to tell him?"

"No," she said with a small smile. Then, "But maybe you should."

Dean frowned. "Don't know why I care what he thinks," he muttered.

"Yeah you do."

"Rose!" came the shout from further down the shore. "Are you coming?"

Rose paused and reached out for his hand. "You're a good person, Dean," she said. "Try to remember that."

He stared after her for a long time before he turned around and headed back, his hands in his pockets.


	10. Book Two: Dead Space, Chapter One

A/N: Surprise chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rights.

...

Something was off with his Ponds, and he didn't like it.

Didn't like secrets, didn't like the way _his _Amelia was looking at him.

Didn't like Rory's sideways glances.

Didn't like River's silence.

They'd dropped River off a while back, but he was still thinking about her. About kissing her. Felt like a schoolboy, didn't know what to do with his hands, knew that this would have come so much easier to him if she'd kissed him just one body earlier, missed the confidence he used to have in that area, knew he didn't really miss it because he remembered the last time he let those feelings surface, remembered Rose and the damage he'd caused himself.

But River . . . she knew she was dangerous to him. Which somehow made it safer.

The Doctor shook his head and forced his thoughts back into the present. They'd landed. He needed to focus.

He checked Amelia's medical scan one more time. False positive? False negative? The TARDIS couldn't quite tell, and that worried him more than anything else. His old girl had always been . . . well, she hadn't been reliable, but she'd been there when it counted.

The Ponds were still asleep, so he thought he'd just nip outside to see where they'd landed. They wouldn't mind. And besides, he needed to clear his mind, to think.

He stepped out of the TARDIS and wondered immediately why the old girl had decided to bring him to a junkyard. "Where are we this time?" he asked her, stroking her side.

She hummed in response.

He shrugged, stuck his hands in his pockets, and made his way through the junkyard. Except the more he looked, the more it looked like a graveyard for cars, with parts missing here and there and engines lying in the dirt.

It was slightly chilly, probably sometime in the fall. But the sun was out, and the place seemed deserted. Time for a nice, leisurely stroll.

He didn't get much further before he heard voices on the wind.

He thought he recognized them, but he couldn't be sure, so he walked towards the voices, keeping his ears metaphorically perked up.

But the voices stopped, and the Doctor was somewhere in the mess of cars, still trying to pick his way out. Didn't help that he was going slowly, just in case the TARDIS had dropped him off in the middle of trouble. That was entirely possible. Even likely.

And then, a new sound started. Smashing glass, thumping metal. Grunts, shouts. The Doctor recognized the evidence: someone was taking out their frustrations on one of these trashed cars.

Probably best not to stick his nose in until whoever it was had calmed down, then.

Finally, the smashing stopped, and then he heard heavy breathing. The Doctor must have been close. He poked his head around a red, beat-up Chevy Cavalier, and both his hearts sank.

Dean. Dean Winchester and a trashed Impala.

Dean's hands were still shaking with suppressed emotion as he held the crowbar before, at last, he dropped it and fell hard against the side of the Impala. Dean sat against one of the tires, staring blankly out past the Doctor's hiding place.

The Doctor had no idea what had happened, but he'd seen enough of the Winchesters to know there were too many probabilities to guess. But it must have been something bad for Dean to trash his Impala like that.

Had something happened to Sam?

The Doctor remembered stories told as if they happened long ago, stories about Sam dying and Dean's deal.

Was this that aftermath?

The Doctor stood up, about to do something, to intervene, to at least offer a shoulder. _Something_.

But someone beat him to it.

"You know those dents are going to take forever to buff out."

The Doctor felt both his hearts leap.

"River?" Dean said, and he scrambled to his feet. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask her the same thing," the Doctor said. If River was there, he knew he'd have been discovered anyway.

"Doc?" Dean had turned a funny color. Almost pale and almost blushing and almost red with anger.

"Hello, Sweetie," River said, but she looked just as surprised to see him. "Out for an afternoon stroll?"

"And you?" the Doctor countered.

River just raised one eyebrow and tapped her vortex manipulator. Like that was answer enough.

Dean had looked up when they both arrived, interested, almost alert, but the Doctor noticed now that he sat down and leaned his head back against the tire. "Great," he said. "Third wheeling again. Like Rose wasn't bad enough."

"Oh, don't mind him. He can't help it that I'm dazzling," River said, then winked at the Doctor.

Dean rolled his eyes at her. He got back to his feet, brushed off his pants. "Look," he said slowly. "It's nice to see you both again. It really is. But I really don't have the time or the energy for whatever weirdness you've brought with you, so unless the world's about to explode, if you two could just flirt somewhere else . . . ."

River reached for Dean carefully, almost gracefully. "I just stopped by for some adventure," she said, though the Doctor knew that was a lie. "But if you'd rather stay here and beat your car into submission . . . ."

Dean glared at her, then at the Doctor. "How long have you two been here?" he asked, and only then did the Doctor notice how raw his voice sounded. How vulnerable.

"I just got here," the Doctor lied. "I heard River and came to see what she was doing here."

Dean visibly relaxed, then glanced at River. River stared hard back at him. The message was obvious: she'd been there for some time. He didn't hold her gaze.

"Let's go for a walk," River suggested. She grabbed the Doctor's arm and kissed his cheek with a whispered, "Be right back," before she held out her arm to a befuddled Dean.

Dean glanced from River to the Doctor before, sighing, he took River's arm. "No alien funny business," he insisted. He did look too tired to deal with it, too.

The Doctor started after them, but River turned around with a _Stay put _commanding kind of look, and the Doctor sighed. He wasn't sure where he was in her timeline, not when she seemed to be on a mission of her own that _didn't _involve him, and that was weird enough as it was without putting the Winchesters in the middle of it.

"Jealous, Doctor?" he asked himself, if only because he was surprised at it.

He looked after his two friends and was surprised to see how gentle they were with each other. Dean reaching for River's hand, River letting him, the sincerity in their faces. He didn't know what they were talking about, (More secrets, he supposed) but they both looked so raw, so . . . _exposed_.

It wasn't a word he would normally associate with either of them.

He hadn't seen this side of River before, and he was pretty sure he wasn't meant to see it. They'd walked a good distance to get away from him. But he didn't take orders, especially from someone who refused to tell him who she was, and he got close enough to sate his curiosity (though far enough away to respect their privacy).

And he didn't see this side of Dean often. Not if Dean could help it, not unless it leaked out after too long being buried.

Something was happening to his friends. The Ponds. River. The Winchesters. And he was _very _tired of being left out of the loop.

"Know any place with decent pie?" he called out at last. That was sure to at least get Dean's attention.

The smile Dean gave him was equal parts tired, understanding, and annoyed.


	11. Book Two: Dead Space, Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rights.

...

It felt good to let it out.

_Smash._

The window blew out. Should've been him.

_Thump_.

A dent in the trunk. Would've been him.

_Thump._

Another dent. Should be dead.

_Thump._

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He wasn't worth it. Wasn't worth _this_.

_Thump._

Kill Sammy?

_Thump._

He was a good son. Good soldier. Dad wouldn't have asked him without a reason.

_Thump._

No choice. Nowhere to turn.

_Thump._

He couldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. Not to Sam. Never. Not Sammy.

_Thump. Thump-thump-thump._

He stopped thinking, saw red, let his arms take over the work of swinging. Let the crowbar fall. Leaned against the Impala. Stared out into nothing.

He could hardly hear anything but the beat of his heart in his ears, but then he heard, "You know those dents are going to take forever to buff out."

He scrambled to his feet. What was _she _doing here? _Now_? "River?" he gasped, wondering if the Doctor was just behind her, hoping he wasn't, wishing they'd gotten there sooner, wondering if it would have made a difference.

Wondering if it would have kept Dad alive.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, knowing he couldn't step in front of the Impala to hide his outburst and still trying to anyway.

"I was about to ask her the same thing." And there he was. The Doctor. The new one. Sticking his head out from behind a car real close by.

How much had he seen?

"Hello, Sweetie," River said. So she'd shown up on her own, then. Dean knew she'd be fun when he first met her, but he couldn't help wondering. "Out for an afternoon stroll?"

"And you?"

The Doctor was looking at River strangely, like he was trying to figure her out. Definitely not the easy partnership Dean had seen before. Early days for them, then. Though judging by the vortex manipulator on River's wrist, she traveled in time, too.

Great. More timelines to keep track of. Like it wasn't confusing enough having_one _time traveling team to keep track of. Now River and Jack were messing things up _on top of it all._

"Great," he sighed. "Third wheeling again. Like Rose wasn't bad enough."

Hmm. Talking about Rose didn't get as much of a rise out of the Doctor as it used to. Dean wondered just how long it had been since Rose in this new body.

"Oh don't mind him," River said, still definitely flirting. "He can't help it that I'm dazzling."

Dean felt something like a smile. Well, she was definitely still just as much fun as he remembered her. But the smile wasn't coming, and he remembered why, and he felt all the breath rush out of him. "Look," he said slowly, wishing they'd come some other time, _any _other time. "It's nice to see you both again. It really is. But I really don't have the time or the energy for whatever weirdness you've brought with you, so unless the world's about to explode, if you two could just flirt somewhere else . . . ."

River reached for him, and he shied away if only out of instinct. But he could see she didn't mean anything by it. It was almost a hungry reach, like she'd_known_. But then she said, "I just stopped by for some adventure. But if you'd rather stay here and beat your car into submission . . . ."

So she'd seen. Dean felt his shoulders droop. And he thought he'd waited until no one was around! He opened his mouth to say something about how he really wasn't usually like this, wasn't usually so _emotional_, but he ended up instead demanding, "How long have you two been here?"

Smooth. Real smooth.

"I just got here," the Doctor said. "I heard River and came to see what she was doing here."

It was hard to tell with the New Doctor if he was lying or not. But Dean felt better assuming the Doctor hadn't been there for any of that outburst. Less embarrassing.

He and River shared a look. Yeah. She'd seen. And she sympathized.

It wasn't like with Bobby or Sam, where they would look at Dean with pity or sadness or worry. No, this was a look of someone who _knew, _knew what it was like, what he was feeling.

"Let's go for a walk," River suggested before Dean could get there first.

River paused and looked at the Doctor like she wasn't quite sure what to do with him. It was obvious she hadn't expected to find him there. But she kissed his cheek and whispered something to him before she offered Dean her arm.

"So I'm betting you're Dean," she said cheerfully.

He blinked at her. Friggin' time travel. "So we haven't met yet?"

She shook her head brightly. "I did find some stories and books about you and your brother when I was researching the Doctor in my archeological studies, but I stopped reading _Pilot _when I got to the part with me in it." She grinned flirtatiously as she added, "I particularly liked _Lazarus Rising_, but I guess you're not there yet."

Dean stared at her blankly.

She waved her hand impatiently. "Ancient history where I come from. Studied archeology thousands of years from now."

"Huh," was all he could think to say. He didn't really understand what she was talking about, but then again, that was par for the course with most of his companions.

She kept smiling brightly until they reached a safe distance from the Doctor, and then she dropped the pretense. She turned to him, and the look in her eyes was so . . . desperate. It wasn't something he would have imagined on her when he first met her.

But then, early days.

"Tell me he's worth it," she said suddenly, grabbing his arm.

She looked so uncertain . . . . "The Doctor?" he asked, just to be sure.

There was something in her gaze as she looked up at him. Hungry. Open.

Tired.

He recognized it immediately. "It's worth it," he said quickly. "Whatever it is."

She glanced at him. "You haven't even heard me out."

"You're asking if it's worth it to sacrifice for family, for the ones you . . . ." He waved his hand impatiently. She got the gist of it. "And I'm telling you it is. Whatever it is."

"Helping him fake his death and taking the fall for it?"

"Did it keep him safe?"

"Yes."

"Worth it."

"Lying to him about it when I meet him out of order?"

"Vital to his safety."

"Nearly . . . nearly getting him killed and then saving him . . . and sacrificing . . . ."

Dean reached for her without thinking. Grabbed her hand. Held it tight. "Yes."

She sighed. "Yeah." Then, "I know it has to be done, but when you're sitting in a cell with just you and your thoughts . . . when he doesn't come to visit for weeks . . . ."

"Yeah," he said. He knew.

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Why'd you track me down?"

River laughed. "Do you think it's easy trying to find another psychopath who travels with the Doctor only occasionally and gets involved in the worst kind of trouble?"

"Yeah, but that's not why you came."

River smiled and leaned back against the trunk of the car. "No, that's not why I came." She sighed.

The Doctor must have been getting bored, because he shouted, "Know any place with decent pie?"

Dean hopped down off the trunk and called back, "I know just the place!" He turned back to River and, in a glance, knew why she'd come.

"Want to learn how to hunt a ghost?" he asked.

"Yes," she breathed; she almost sounded relieved.

"Okay. First chance we get, we ditch the Doctor. Deal?"

"Deal."

...

A/N: I've always believed that River would have needed an outlet that _wasn't_the Doctor to deal with everything she's been through. I mean, her whole life was basically created around the guy. She needs a break to let out the psychopath every once in a while in a situation where she's _not _trying to "not let him see the damage."


	12. Book Two: Dead Space, Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or Doctor Who or any of the related rights.

...

"Bobby!" Dean shouted.

When the Doctor asked if they could go somewhere, he hadn't expected to be invited inside.

He couldn't really see the Winchester brothers owning a house, so it must have belonged to Bobby.

The Doctor had met Bobby a few times before, in passing, but Dean seemed a bit apprehensive and had specifically warned the Doctor against "anything space-y" while they were there, so this was probably a first for Bobby. The Doctor was looking forward to it. What little he'd seen of the old hunter had been fun. When he was still around, of course.

That had been a rough time for the Winchesters.

Sure enough, Bobby came around the corner, eyes wide as he took in his new visitors. They definitely looked out of place.

River introduced herself breezily. "River Song," she said. "Friend of Dean's."

Bobby looked her over and shot a knowing look at Dean, who shook his head and jerked his thumb at the Doctor. It didn't take a genius to figure out what he was talking about. Or not talking about.

"Where's Sam?" Dean asked. Bobby jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen, and then Dean was gone.

"Nice to meet you," the Doctor said, sticking his hand out to shake Bobby's.

Bobby regarded him with an almost calculating gaze. "You're a friend of Dean's?" he asked.

"Since he was eight," the Doctor said. He realized he wasn't going to get a handshake and stuck his hands back in his pockets.

"Well," Bobby said, "come in, you two. Take a seat." He indicated the worn couches.

"Thanks. We won't be staying long," the Doctor said. "We're really just passing through."

Some of the tension around Bobby's eyes relaxed, but not all. "And Dean told you he'd be here?"

Ah. The Doctor saw the problem. "We know he comes here sometimes," he said.

Bobby didn't look like he believed the Doctor.

Thankfully, Sam came around the corner (all six-foot-four of him; the Doctor could hardly remember a time when Sam wasn't a giant) and grinned. "Doctor?" he asked.

So Sam hadn't met him in this body, but Dean had. The Doctor wondered when that was, because Dean had seemed hardly phased by regeneration.

"I'm River, by the way," River said, standing up. "Where's your brother?"

"Getting the beer," Sam said.

"I'll help."

And then River left the Doctor with two wary hunters.

"So," he said. "What's been going on around here?"

...

"You doing okay?" Dean asked her as she slipped into the passenger seat of the scratched-up, grey, '94 Impala (not as good at _his _Impala, Dean had said, but it would suffice).

"This hunting thing. It helps?" she asked.

"It's nice to get your head on something that's not idiots you care about getting themselves in trouble," he said.

"No kidding."

He grinned crookedly at her, and River knew almost immediately that they were going to be easy friends.

"So, how long can Sam keep my old man occupied?" she asked.

"He's creative," Dean said with a shrug. And then, "But the Doctor's not stupid. He'll realize we've gone." He started and revved the engine and grinned again. "For example: starting a car. Usually a good sign someone's leaving you in the lurch."

She laughed.

...

The Doctor opened the door to the TARDIS. "What do you think?"

Sam walked in, open-mouthed. "You've redecorated," he said simply, his eyes wide, taking it all in. "I mean, Dean told me the inside of this thing could change, but I figured . . . maybe a few changes here and there . . . ."

The Doctor leaned against the railing and grinned at Sam. First Canton and then Sam. He could forget sometimes how much he loved the awe and attention people lavished on his gorgeous TARDIS. So when Sam had suggested they go back to the TARDIS, the Doctor had only been too willing. Even if he knew it was only a ploy for time.

He'd heard River and Dean leaving when the car started up. Sam had obviously been in on the ploy, and Bobby even tried to join in, but the Doctor knew when people were lying to him. And it was never a good idea.

But he also knew that River was River, and Dean was Dean, and if the two of them wanted something, there was no stopping either of them on their own, let alone the two of them together.

Like it wasn't frustrating enough that he didn't know who River was. Now Dean seemed to be in on something.

"What's going on with Dean?" the Doctor asked.

Sam glanced at the Doctor, and the glance hardened into a glare. "I _did _call you," he said. "Both times."

"Where did you get my phone number?"

"Dean."

"Where did he get it?"

"Martha." Sam kept his arms crossed over his chest. "You didn't get a phone call?"

The Doctor held his arms out helplessly. "I travel in time. I don't always get things in order. I may very well get a call in a month, or I might get ittomorrow, or maybe I got it yesterday and just haven't checked Martha's old phone or the new one the TARDIS installed because I've been a bit busy trying to stage a rebellion against the alien entity that's been ruling the human race without you ever realizing it." He didn't usually pull the "sorry, I was saving the planet" excuse, but he also didn't want any Winchesters angry at him.

Sam looked like he was trying to keep up his glare, but finally, he dropped his pretenses. "Next time I call, come on time," he said. "Dean's nearly died _twice_and you weren't there." He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Dad died. And Dean thinks it's his fault."

That sounded about right. "I don't know what I could have done to help." Then, "I can only do so much. I can't work miracles." Wasn't that the truth.

"I was desperate. I called everyone," Sam said, his voice even, but the Doctor could see that Sam was breathing heavily.

"You doing okay?"

Sam gave him a withering look.

"Sorry. Dumb question."

"I'll be fine." He looked around the TARDIS again. "New body, then?"

"Me or the TARDIS?" he asked with a smile.

"You don't do anything halfway, do you?" Sam chuckled.

The Doctor leaned back and looked up at his marvelous TARDIS. "She's always been part of me anyway," he said.

Sam looked up at the ceiling, too, and they both fell silent.

He heard the pitter patter of Pond feet, and the next thing he knew, he heard Amy call out from the doorway, "Who's here?"

Sam poked his head around the TARDIS central column and waved his fingers with a rueful grin. "Hey there. Doc said everyone was asleep. Didn't mean to wake you."

Rory followed close behind, wrapping his bathrobe tighter around himself as he went. "What's going on?" he asked. He looked like he'd been dragged out of bed by Amy; his hair was still a mess and his eyes only half open, but when he saw someone new in the TARDIS, he stood up a little straighter and paid a little more attention. "Who are you?"

Sam waved again. "Hi. Sam Winchester. Didn't mean to intrude. I was just catching up with the Doctor. We're old friends."

"Oh?" Amy crossed her arms in her _Doctor, you better start explaining why I don't know what's happening _look.

The Doctor sighed and threw back his head. "Sam, Ponds. Amy and Rory. Amy, you remember Sam. Rory, meet Sam."

"Nice to meet you," Sam said, shooting the Doctor a questioning glance.

"Where have we landed, Doctor?" Rory asked, making his way to the scanner.

"You're at Bobby Singer's house," Sam said. "Probably means nothing to you, but that's where my brother and I are staying right now. Earth, USA, if that helps."

Rory raised his eyebrows at him, then shrugged. "Great. So we're just stopping over?" he asked the Doctor. "Or have you found us more monsters to fight?"

Sam laughed at the Doctor's annoyed expression. "So, not much has changed," he said. He looked at Amy and grinned. "How long have you two been traveling with him?"

"It's hard to tell," Amy said, waving her hand. "We keep stopping and starting up again." She looked Sam over with a sideways grin.

"I don't really _travel _with him," Sam said. "Tried it once and got my brother captured by Silurians."

Amy frowned. "Been there. Not fun."

"Really?" Sam asked, standing up a little straighter. "What happened?"

The Doctor sighed and settled into the nearest seat. Well, at least they were getting along. Maybe he could slip out quietly and see what River and Dean were up to.


End file.
